Lifetime Eyes Second Drama Night

Lifetime Television has made the call on a pair of primetime dramas that will
give it a second night of original-series programming beginning in August.

The women's targeted network has ordered 1-800 Missing and Wild
Card. Sources said the pair will likely be stitched together on Saturday
nights.

The former, starring Gloria Reuben(ER) and produced by Lions
Gate Television, centers on a no-nonsense FBI agent and a psychic who team up to
find missing persons. It is based on the novel 1-800-Where R U by Meg
Cabot.

Wild Card, from Fireworks Entertainment, focuses on a former blackjack
dealer turned insurance-fraud investigator. Joely Fisher (Ellen,
Inspector Gadget) is in the lead role.

At the network's upfront presentation earlier this month, executive vice
president of entertainment Barbara Fisher said Lifetime had also filmed two
other pilots: Follow the Leeds, with Sharon Lawrence and Maria Pitillo as
two sisters running a private detective agency; and Nick and Shelly,
featuring Julie Warner and Adrian Pasdar as divorced police detectives who still
work cases together.

Lifetime's Sunday-night success with dramas like The Division,
Strong Medicine and Any Day Now helped the distaff-oriented channel
to wear the primetime ratings crown in 2001 and 2002.

This year, Lifetime fell to fourth in the first quarter behind Fox News
Channel, Turner Network Television and Nickelodeon.